Writing POC 101

Indian Characters - @wheresmybroomstick

I discovered the whole aspect of "online friendship" when I was in 4th grade. I remember making an account on i-dressup.com where basically one designs their own guest room and wardrobe and engages in conversations with their guests - in short a cool place to meet people from all over the world. I'd spend half of my time there talking to strangers, being the loser that I am. I also made a blog section in my guestroom where I'd talk about random stuff. What bothered me the most is that so many of the guests that'd read my blog would send me this question: "How do you know English so well being an Indian?" It was a backhanded compliment. I honestly didn't know how to respond to that question and sadly, I'd receive so many variations of those. I grew up discovering more websites like Youtube, 4chan, Omegle, and the like and realised that "not knowing english" was not the only stereotype Indians were associated with. I very vividly remember stumbling across a thread where everyone was stating their opinions on Indians and almost all of them were negative, for some reason - Indians are ugly looking, Indians smell, Indians are geeks, Indians are perverted, Indians are poor, Indians are close-minded and so on. I was so upset going through the responses, it made me feel ashamed of being Indian. I would then never disclose my nationality on the internet because I've had instances wherein people would just ignore or delete me once I told them I was from India. I, after a few years, realised how stupid I was. I stopped hiding my location and started distancing myself from people who would have a problem with me being Indian. I started taking about all the stereotypes that I came across. I'd really like to discuss a few of them here as I know that stereotypes won't go away soon - we, as humans, tend to prefer grouping everything to avoid unavoidable entropy and confusion. But we can certainly strive to stop stereotypes in literature by spreading awareness; so as to avoid polluting the knowledge of the readers. Because books are where we learn most of the things from, right?

So let's begin with debunking a few myths. For starters: Nope, I don't have curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nope, I don't drink cow piss. Nope, I don't go to school riding an elephant. Nope, I don't wear a sari. Nope, I don't have a pet snake. Sorry to crush all your dreams.

Whenever I come across an Indian character in a book, I always notice the following things:

1) They have curry all the bloody time

No, we don't. India is a big, diverse country. There's a different cuisine type in every state. Thumb Rule: Every 5000km: new cuisine, new dialect. Where there's naan, rotis, and paneer in one state, there is idli, dosa, and sambhar in another. Note, however, they're not mutually exclusive.

2) They have a thick, "weird" English accent, or don't know English

Again, every state and locality has a different accent. It all depends on the language spoken there.
In India, more than 415 languages have been documented (Source: SIL Ethnologue). Naturally, the accent would differ, depending on the language spoken there. It's kind of similar to the "British accent" stereotype. There's the thick Glaswegian accent and then there's the gentle West Country lilt. A Northerner and a Southerner sound very, very different. British accent is not even a thing as the media has made the English accent synonymous to British. But regardless, coming back to Indian
accents - no we all don't sound the same. And we do know English, thank you very much.

3) They're always Hindu (a polytheistic religious ideology originated in India)

This is so sad as India is home to various religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism,
Buddhism, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Every Indian need not be a Hindu. Interesting fact: India has roughly the same number of Muslims as Pakistan (10.9% v/s 11% of total Muslim population), putting India third in the ranking of countries by Muslim populations (after Indonesia and Pakistan). (Source: 2010 Pew Research Report, Wiki: List of Countries by Muslim Population.)

4) They have a huge-ass family

Again, no. I'm from Mumbai and I rarely come across joint families or families with more than 3 children. Yes, the Indian population is humongous and the rural areas have big families which contribute to the population growth - but not every Indian household is like that.

5) They know all about Calculus when the turn 4 years old.

Trust me, I'm an Indian and when I see a maths textbook - I want to scream and run for my life. I hate
that subject so much. And let's not get started with those useless maths textbooks which print a 3 page description of a bloody mathematician and then go about skipping steps while solving sums. THAT IS HONESTLY SO INFURIATED I FEEL LIKE GOING ON A MURDER SPREE. If the
publisher really wanted to save pages by avoiding all the steps, then why print the detailed birth history of a douchebag because of whom I'm suffering?! Anyway, enough with the rant. But yes, not all Indians like maths or are extremely smart enough to understand sums without explanations and properly solved sums.

6) The Indian girls discover who their to-be husbands are at the wedding

Ugh, stop with that already! Seriously? Love marriages do happen in the country. Infact, quite a
lot. Yes, the concept of an arranged marriage is still somewhat prevalent but it's not how the media portrays it to be. The urban arranged marriage is basically a version of "dating service run by your families" wherein the parents set you up with a few guys, you date them and then you choose the best cherry.

7) They're very narrow-minded.

You honestly can't stereotype an entire country to be narrow-minded now, can you? There are a few
ignorant people who couldn't care about anything but their set of beliefs and then there are a few well read people who are open to learning something new about different cultures.

8) They have bad hygiene and are unattractive

Okay, that's just rude. Fuck off. I'm as pretty as a snowflake.

9) They are always vegetarians for religious reasons

A lot of people here are non vegetarians, a lot of Hindus here consume pork and beef, and a lot of people are vegetarian or vegan for ethical/health reasons. Welcome to India, a foodie's delight!

10) They put women down

Not true for the urban areas. The villages do have unfair laws and systems for the women, I agree. But the same does not hold true for the urban areas. Also, the states Meghalaya and Kerala have a matrilineal system. You'll find women take center-stage in every aspect of life there.

I'm sure there are waaay more stereotypes associated with Indian people but I've come across the above mentioned ones quite a few times and it's infuriating. PLEASE read up on Indian culture if you are planning to write a story including a brown character.